SOME FAMOUS HOAXES.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 October 1926, Page 22

SOME FAMOUS HOAXES.

BARNUM AND HIS FREAKS. GRINNING MISSING LINK. ‘•ZIP—THE WHAT IS IT?” When the Ringling Brothers bought the Barnum and Bailey circus several vears ago, they incidentally inherited the last°P. T. Barnum hoax in the person of “Zip—The What Is It?” “Zip” died in New York recently, says the New York American, after 65 years of circus life. He was the best-known -freak” of all the circus “strange people and had been presented to the public years ago by Mr. Barnum as “The Missing Link,” with a head like an ice-cream cone, a nose like an African ant-eater and hair on his body like a giant gorilla. The crowds stared and marvelled, and -‘Zip” grinned and muttered jumbled sounds like a monkey. It was not until “Zip” died that Mr. Barnum’s hoax was revealed. “Zip” was an American coloured man with a rather unusual shaped head, but the strange top-knot on - his skull w-as a wi“, and the gorilla-like hair on his body was a fake. “Zip —The \5 hat Is It?” was neither more nor less than Willian Henry Johnson, and instead of coming from the “wilds of South Africa,” he was born in 1857 in New Jersey, and a brother and sister were at his bedside and followed his remains to his grave in Bound Brook, New Jersey. -

Mr. Barnum had taken “Zip” at an early age and capitalised his peculiarly’shaped head and had added the euriovv topknot and “gorilla hair,” and thus had built him into a first-class “freak.” The secret has been kept well until “Zip s” death, When the disguises were torn off and. the undertaker dressed him in evening clothes and laid him in his coffin. “THE FEJEE MERMAID.” “Zip” is the last of a long line of hoaxes, the most famous of which probably was P. T. Barnum’s “Fejee Mermajd.” On a great flag the late Mr. Barnum had an artist paint the beautiful figure of a woman, 18ft long, wnth magnificent eyes and arms, glowing cheeks, and flowing hair. On the body from the waist-line were the scales of a fish, and finally, the tail of a fish was painted. This was the glorious mermaid as -Mr. Barnum advertised it to the credulous.

To make the idea still plainer to the public, Barnum also had a picture of three beautiful mermaids playing about in the water and called it “The Mermaid in Her Natural Element.” To explain how the showman came into possession of this natural wonder, he also had another painting made of a sail-boat towing the captured marvel through the water to captivity. But the public which gazed at the 18ft beautiful mermaid on the great flag and paid the admission to go inside and see this extraordinary exhibit —beheld a hide-: Ous, black, shrivelled creature only 3ft long, f Describing the marvellous Fejee Mermaid, Mr. M. R. Werner, in his “Life of Barnum,” says’“The face was of a monstrous ugliness, and the whole specimen. which was 3ft long, was dried up and black. The mis shaped arms, with

their hideous long fingers on the ends of distorted hands, were turned up, and the right hand covered the right side of the face. The mouth was wide open, revealing bestial teeth, and the whole expression of the face gave the vivid impression that the animal had died in an extreme agony which had been carefully preserved by its embalmers.” HISTORY OF THE DECEPTION. That was what the public saw’ in actuality instead of Mr. .Barnum’s 18foot gorgeous woman with the fish’s body and tail, as he depicted it outside the circus. The real history of the “Fejee Mermaid” probably was revealed in a book which Mr. Barnum came across later on, which gave an account of a Japane fisherman who joined the up-per-half of a monkey to the lower-half of a fish sb skilfully that the joint could not be seen.

The ingenious Japanese told his fel-low-townsmen that he had caught the mermaid in his net and that it had expired soon after its capture. The mermaid was exhibited in Japan, and its Japanese owner insisted that it had spoken a few words before it died and had made certain predictions as to famines, epidemics and other ills. A Dutch trader bought the mermaid and finally sold it to an American ship’s captain, who took it to America, and thus it eventually fell into Barnum’s hands. Even the field of high art has been invaded by the perpetrator of hoaxes. Perhaps the most remarkable recent case was that of “the bust of Flora,”' said to be a masterpiece of Leonardo da Vinci, In 1910 Dr. Wilhelm Bode, the most noted art expert of Germany, and director of the Kaiser Fredrich Museum in Berlin, discovered “the bust of Flora” in the store of Murray Marks, a London art dealer. “THREE HUNDRED YEARS OLD.” Dr. Bode examined it and concluded that it was the true work of da Vinci, one of the foremost masters of the Italian Renaissance, whose “Mona Lisa” is the greatest art Measure of the French Government. The bust was made of wax and delicately coloured. Leonardo had made few, if any, statues of that material, but that only gave added value to this one. How remarkable that a w'ax bust should have lasted for 300 years. Investigation showed that there was an obs&ire painting by Leonardo da Vinci called “Flora.” The bust was evidently copied from this painting, and this helped to establish its identity. The bust of “Flora” wore a strange and enigmatic smile which was not unlike that of the “Mona Lisa.” It was certainly fully, as enigmatic. This was, perhaps, regarded as the most conspicuous proof of its authenticity. The price asked by the dealer was £B2OO. That was a much larger sum in the art field than it is to-day. Dr. Bode did not hesitate for a moment. He could not bear the thought that some English or American art collector might carry away Leonardo’s masterpiece.

Dr. Bode made the bust the central attraction of the great Kaiser Fredrich Museum. All the royalty and nobility and fashion of Germany went to view it. Dr. Bode was the favourite art expert of the then Kaiser Wilhelm, who expressed great pleasure that Berlin possessed a work by da Vinci rivalling that of Paris. A CRUEL REVELATION. Then a common English auctioneer

made a cruel revelation. He proved that the bust of “Flora” was the work of an obscure English artist named R. C. Lucas, in the early years of Queen Victoria. An art patron of the time ordered the bust to be made from a painting said to be by Leonardo da Vinci, but of very doubtful authenticity. Mr. Lucas made it from old wax candle ends.

When it was finished the art patron did not care for it because it was too undraped for the taste of Queen Victoria’s young days. He left it with the artist. The latter grew weary of haying the masterpiece knocking about his studio, and threw it in a corner of the garden. There it acquired a fine “patina” and air of antiquity. These marks of age were potent in alluring the astute Dr. Bode. After a few years it was sold by Mr. Lucas for £3 and was not heard of again until Dr. Bode bought it for the handsome sum of £B2OO.

The Germans examined the bust critically and found that it had been stuffed with a selection of Early Victorian bed-quilt to give it solidity. Many other facts confirmed the accuracy of the auctioneer’s statement. Dr. Bode, however, always insisted that it was a genuine work by Leonardo da Vinci, but that Mr. Lucas had had it in his studio for repair. THE FAMOUS “CARDIFF GIANT.” Perhaps the greatest industry ever shown in preparing a hoax was displayed in the case of the once famous “Cardiff Giant.” Mr. George Hull, a tobacconist, of Binghamton, New York, and the Rev. John Turk, of Ackley, Ohio, became involved in an argument over the existence of giants in prehistoric time. Mr. Turk maintained strongly that they existed. He pointed to the statement in the Bible that “there were giants in those days.” Mr. Hull determined to make his adversary and others a laughing-stock by inducing them to declare a block of stone to be a gigantic human fossil. Mr. Hull spent two years in preparing his hoax. He obtained a slab of stone 13ft long, 4ft in width and 22in thick. From this a giant form of crude but rather strange and terrifying outlines was carved. It was constructed in such a way as to raise a doubt whether it was a fossilised human being or a gigantic prehistoric sculpture. Mr. Hull pierced it with what looked like wormholes, rubbed it down with sand till some of the features were almost obliterated, bathed it in sulphuric acid, and gave it a course of treatment that produced the appearance of age. The giant was then shipped to Cardiff, New York, and buried on the farm of a relative of Mr. Hull named Newell. It was discovered there in‘October, 1869, by men who were digging a well. Serious scientists in America generally accepted it as a relic of prehistoric times. It was publicly exhibited in all the principal cities of the United States, and was accepted as genuine by the leading men of science, including the distinguished President White, of Cornwell University. One clergyman oven ventured the opinion that it might 'fe the identical pillar of salt to which Lot's unhappy wife was changed. It was several years before the imposture was finally detected, and it became known that the giant was carved from gypsum.